Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: employment

Kitty Hawk is shutting down its Flyer program, the aviation startup’s inaugural moonshot to develop an ultralight electric flying car designed for anyone to use.

The company, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page and led by Sebastian Thrun, said it’s now focused on scaling up Heaviside, a sleeker, more capable (once secret) electric aircraft that is quiet, fast and can fly and land anywhere autonomously.

Kitty Hawk is laying off most of Flyer’s 70-person team, TechCrunch learned. A few employees will be brought over to work on Heaviside, according to the company. Those who are laid off will receive at least 20 weeks of pay, plus tenure, depending on how long they were with the company. Former workers will also receive their annual bonus and have their health insurance covered through the end of the year. The company said it will set up placement services to help people find employment.

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As the pandemic’s economic toll grows around the world, some experts fear it could harm science for decades by putting many thousands of researchers out of work and forcing nations to slash funding as they rebuild societies. Others say the pandemic could highlight the importance of science and spur long-term support, especially for basic research, much as the Second World War did.

Financial crises could spell trouble for science budgets but spending could surge in some countries: part 2 in a series on science after the pandemic.

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Does artificial intelligence jeopardize employment for humans? What will people do when smart robots join the workforce? AI already plays a role in many of our jobs, and if you have ever searched for information online, you have interacted with an AI. If we extrapolate the evolution of search, we can imagine that soon AIs will become even better at helping us learn solutions that have worked in the past and remember what things have failed. In this way, working with AIs can be like having a really smart colleague or expert old-timer on our team. And these AI coworkers can also help us experiment with new approaches because AIs can be creative as well. Their creativity is unlike human creativity, and that uniqueness is its primary value. AIs can also make valuable team members by performing rote tasks that humans are or become bored by. The share of work that AIs perform is likely to shift over time, but I cannot think of a single job or occupation that will not benefit from collaborating with and delegating to AIs. If we reframe our fears about robots taking human jobs, if we can utilize the AI over our shoulder, if we can see AIs as team members, we will find the future of work holds opportunities for all of us.

This video on “The Future of Employment with AI” was commissioned by China Mobile as part of an online course. It is one of 36 lecture videos. A version with Chinese subtitles is available at Citic Migu: http://citic.cmread.com/zxHtml/listenBook/listenDetail/listenDetail.html?bookId=10000019313&isShare=1&channel=1

A transcript of the lecture in English is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16dYZ4Vwm796ScRQ0lHrEauwC4M3-Y3gd/view?usp=sharing

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In our efforts to domesticate Artificial Intelligence and prepare people for future jobs in Africa. We are glad to announce our first Robotic boot camp tagged Introduction to Robotics 1.0. The Artificial Intelligence Hub is training young people between the ages 7 and 20 on Robotic Engineering. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn and be equipped with future skills. Register with the link provided below. https://forms.gle/yTx2obDkSQ5ULTLM9

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Quantum technology is not a phrase discussed over kitchen tables in Australia, but perhaps it should be.

Australia’s quantum technology research has been breaking new ground for almost 30 years. Governments, universities and more recently multinationals have all invested in this research.

Quantum technology is set to transform electronics, communications, computation, sensing and other fields. In the process it can create new markets, new applications and new jobs in Australia.

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This raises the question of whether AI — defined as algorithms that mimic human intelligence — can deliver on its potential, and when. The answer is crucial because AI could become the ultimate industry disrupter, threatening tens of millions of jobs in Asia as business processes are automated. In addition, AI is the subject of intense rivalry between the US and China.

Unicorns abound but enthusiasm has dimmed. Will AI fulfil its potential?

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A bit of transhuman fiction. It doesn’t take long.

What would it be like to live forever? Writer Richard Dooling explores this question in this fictional piece from Esquire.

Originally published May 1999. Published on KurzweilAI.net May 22, 2001.

1994

March 30: Today I turn forty. I am officially protected by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. If I had an employer, I could now sue him if he discriminated against me because of my, ulp, age. Until now, I’ve half believed in one of Vladimir Nabokov’s elegant syllogisms: Other men die, but I am not other men; therefore, I’ll not die. Nabokov died in 1977. Every time I look in the bathroom mirror, I see Death, the Eternal Footman (looking quite proud), standing in the shadows behind me, holding my coat, snickering. I live with my family in my hometown of Omaha. My selfish genes have managed an immortality of sorts by getting themselves into four delightful children, who are still too young to turn on me. My wife and I have enjoyed nine years of marriage, what Robert Louis Stevenson called “a friendship recognized by the police.” I’m Catholic, so as mortality looms on the far side of the middle-age horizon, I seek consolation in my Christian faith and one of its central tenets: belief in the immortality of my soul. But the lawyer in me also highlights the usual caveats and provisos. According to the Scriptures, my quality of life after death may depend on my ability to love my fellow man. This is a big problem. I forgot to mention that in addition to being a practicing Catholic, I’m also a practicing misanthrope. As I see it, my only chance of avoiding eternal damnation is to stay alive until I learn to love other people. Or until some future pope issues an encyclical providing spiritual guidance for misanthropic Catholics. November 16: My second novel, White Man’s Grave, is a finalist for the National Book Award. For at least a day or two, I wonder if I might be able to achieve immortality by writing great literature. My wife and I fly to the awards ceremony in New York City, where William Gaddis wins the National Book Award in Fiction for A Frolic of His Own.

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(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is seeking almost $656,000 in new funding from California in the midst of the billionaire’s battle over whether Tesla Inc. should be reopening its plant in the state.

SpaceX’s request for funds to train existing workers and hire new ones will go before the state’s Employment Training Panel on May 15, one week after the county that’s home to Tesla’s factory sought to block the facility from resuming operations. The company sued the next day, and its chief executive officer threatened to move Tesla’s headquarters, future programs and potentially its manufacturing out of the state.

Musk, 48, appears to be prevailing in the stand-off. He tweeted Monday that Tesla was restarting production in spite of Alameda County’s order and said that if anyone is arrested, he wanted to be the only one.

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The U.S. Navy is teaming up with DARPA to develop autonomous, robotic ships that are completely human free. The NOMARS (No Mariners Required Ship) concept, if successful, would be a huge leap over current unmanned surface vessel development efforts. The result could be a warship able to do the tedious, dangerous, and dirty jobs all by itself, keeping human-crewed ships safe from harm—and boredom.

The Navy, struggling to grow the fleet on a flat defense budget, is making a big push into unmanned surface vessels, or USVs. The Navy plans to build ten Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle ships, 200 to 300 foot long vessels displacing 2,000 tons, in five years. LUSV would act as a scout, sailing ahead of the fleet to detect threats early, or floating magazine, carrying a large load of missiles. LUSV would ideally be autonomous, or optionally manned with a small crew.

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